Movie set built in outback Queensland brings employment to the region

A movie set has been built in outback Queensland to construct a town near the community of Middleton, which usually has a population of three people.

Producers built a set near the town, 170 kilometres west of Winton in the state's central-west, with filming getting underway this week.

Contemporary western film Goldstone is a follow-up to the 2013 movie Mystery Road, and stars Australian actors Aaron Pederson, Jacki Weaver, David Gulpilil and David Wenham.

I have always said that if John Wayne knew this country was here, he would come back and make one more movie, just for old time's sake.

Middleton publican Lester Cain

Producer David Jowsey said the dry, arid landscape made Middleton the ideal location, and they had constructed a movie set to transform the tiny town.

"It looks like a little old town in the mid-west of America really, but really it just happens to be in the middle of Queensland, outback Queensland," he said.

"It really does look like a classic mid-western town — a town that Clint Eastwood might ride into.

"It is set on this extraordinary plain with these rocky outcrops and we've got little demountables set up here and there, and it is just terrific."

Mr Jowsey said Mystery Road was filmed in and around Winton, but the landscape further west was well suited for Goldstone.

"It is just an extraordinary location where we are," he said.

"We have built the town of Goldstone so it really is a very, very small and isolated place.

"The plains at Middleton with the rocky outcrops behind them, they are just extraordinarily beautiful especially as the sun goes down and Ivan Sen, our writer-director and cinematographer, is able to capture those lingering sunsets."

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